In the dark, early morning hours outside a McDonald’s in Orange County, a police officer fired a gun loaded with so-called non-lethal weapons at a man wearing a belt, swearing at officers and believed to be on drugs, authorities said.
One, two, three, four bean bag shots were fired from 30 feet away, but the man did not comply with orders to get down, according to a report released Thursday by the Orange County district attorney’s office.
So, the officer fired a fifth shot. It pierced the man’s chest, and he fell to the ground bleeding profusely. Within an hour, he was pronounced dead.
Investigators with the district attorney’s office recently learned that Fullerton Police Cpl. Nicholas Jarvis was justified in his use of force that killed Alejandro Campos Rios, 50, on March 6, 2024.
“Corporal Jarvis’ deployment of a less-lethal bean rifle at that range was consistent with his training and reasonable under the circumstances,” the report said.
Less lethal weapons such as bean bag rounds are designed to spread the impact force over a large area, without penetrating the skin, giving officers an alternative to ammunition when defending against threats. And as the use of force by police departments across the country has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, the use of less lethal weapons has increased dramatically.
“I can see that there seem to be less lethal methods being used instead of shooting people outright,” said civil rights attorney Kellen Davis, who has prosecuted numerous police department use-of-force cases. “But I think that force, period, should be a last resort. I would be happy to see more mitigation tactics instead of using any kind of force.”
Less lethal weapons are attributed to the decline in police-involved shootings. However, they remain a controversial tool because of the harm they can cause – and, in rare cases like this, death.
An 18-page report released by the district attorney’s office paints a detailed picture of the circumstances leading to Campos Rios’ death, but does not provide a clear answer as to how a device intended to stun and disable became a deadly weapon.
The incident began at 2:55 a.m. on March 6, 2024, when the Fullerton Police Department received a call from a woman who worked at McDonald’s at 1341 S. Brookhurst Road, reporting “two homeless men” who appeared to be “busy on drugs” near the building’s entrance. He said he was afraid for the safety of his colleagues who came to work.
The officer arrived at 3:06 a.m. to Campos Rios, who was singing and yelling and began to break his body with a nylon belt with a metal belt “in a spectacular manner,” according to the report.
The officer called for backup, and Jarvis quickly arrived at the scene, where he saw Campos Rios acting erratically and assumed he was under the influence of drugs, according to the report. The officer told Campos Rios to drop his seatbelt and stay on the curb, but he refused.
The police repeatedly asked Campos Rios to obey their orders. He ignored them and continued throwing his belt around insulting the officials, singing, shouting and hitting the pillar with his hands. Apart from the belt, the report does not specify any weapon he had.
At 3:13 a.m., Jarvis loaded six rounds from a 12 gauge drag-stabilized beanbag shotgun Remington Model 870 Police Magnum and placed himself 30 feet away from Campos Rios, the report said. Officers are trained that the device can be deployed 20 to 100 feet from the target, the report said.
The first responding officer activated his taser, to create a warning sound. Campos Rios then approached him, cursed, and hit the belt towards him. The officer announced that he was going to fire his taser, and then fired the taser, which appeared to hit Campos Rios and seriously distract him.
Jarvis then shouted, “Bean bag! Bean bag!” and fired one round at Campos Rios, hitting him in the arm. Campos Rios moved from the first officer toward the McDonald’s door, and Jarvis discharged his weapon four times, the last round striking Campos Rios in the chest.
Paramedics began performing life-saving measures at 3:22 a.m.; Campos Rios was pronounced dead at UC Irvine Medical Center at 3:55 a.m. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the chest and an accumulation of blood between the chest and lungs.
The report states that Jarvis’ use of force was justified because “overwhelmingly credible evidence supports the conclusion that at the time of the shooting, Corporal Jarvis was acting appropriately for his own life and that of others.”
It is rare, but not unheard of, for less lethal weapons to cause death.
An analysis of nearly 2,000 people injured by rubber bullets, bean bag rounds and other explosives used by law enforcement from 1990 to 2017 found that 15% of people were permanently disabled and 3% died. Of the 53 dead, 26 were injured in the head and neck, and 15 were injured in the chest and abdomen.
Research shows that the muzzle velocity of less lethal weapons is similar to lethal bullets and that serious injuries are often caused by rounds that hit vital organs nearby. To prevent serious injury, officers are trained to shoot in a safe area.
“Safe firing distances are not well established, however, and vary greatly between weapons, countries and manufacturers,” the study said, adding that, in fact, lethal weapons can be deployed “from far beyond what is considered safe.”
In 2021, Gov. Newsom signed Assembly Bill 48 into law, which placed restrictions on the use of non-lethal weapons, including that they cannot be aimed at the head, neck or any other vital organs.
Recent pro-immigration protests in Los Angeles have renewed the debate about the use of non-lethal weapons as protesters and members of the media have been injured by beanbag rounds and 40 mm projectiles, resulting in dozens of lawsuits.
Davis, a civil rights attorney, said that in his experience prosecuting use-of-force cases, it is extremely rare that weapons of mass destruction cause death.
“To me it sounds like there’s something wrong with the weapon,” he said.
When asked about possible wrongdoing, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said their job is to “determine whether any police officers have violated any criminal laws and does not include reviewing any issues affecting the public or whether or not department policy was followed.” The Fullerton Police Department did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
